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The Jones Act Is Forcing Puerto Rico to Overpay for Energy

That the Dominican Republic sources most of its fuel from the United States while Puerto Rico—a U.S. territory with American citizens—does not (and cannot in the case of bulk LPG and LNG) is an embarrassing absurdity. Such a distorted state of affairs can only be explained by misguided Jones Act protectionism. Let us hope the island can be exempted from this archaic law so it can make greater use of domestic products and realize much‐needed savings to meet its citizens’ energy needs.

The Jones Act Is Forcing Puerto Rico to Overpay for Energy Read More »

Colin Grabow
August 3, 2022

Puerto Rico needs a state-of-the-art labor context

We need to promote laws that encourage the growth of new companies and ecosystems of innovative services. In the near future, the emerging and vibrant economies will be those that enrich and promote the generation of services based on the talent of human capital. We need to transform the talent market and create a legislative framework that facilitates labor flexibility.

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Nilda Perez Martinez
August 2, 2022

Populism and the economic failure of Puerto Rico

The governments in power (each one for a single four-year term) moved away from the possibility of promoting a long-term economic project and focused on managing the crisis within the political restrictions imposed by the four-year term. Politicians' addiction to taxes and debt to artificially keep the government apparatus alive cemented a narrative that government was essential at the expense of the productive sector. The government itself has created a dangerous spiral of economic contraction with higher taxes and spending.

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Gustavo Velez
July 27, 2022
Populism and the economic failure of Puerto Rico

Hayek in The Foundations of Liberty: On Merit, Equality, and Social Justice

The extension of the principle of equality to the rules of social and moral conduct is the main expression of what we commonly call the democratic spirit, and, probably, this spirit is what makes the inequalities that freedom inevitably provokes more harmless.

Hayek in The Foundations of Liberty: On Merit, Equality, and Social Justice Read More »

Martin Krause
July 26, 2022

Florida started penalizing bureaucratic delay. Housing permits spiked.

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill that fundamentally changes the state’s permitting process for home building. It requires local jurisdictions to post online not only their permitting processes but also the status of permit applications. The transparency takes a good amount of mystery out of what can be an inscrutable branch of bureaucracy.

Florida started penalizing bureaucratic delay. Housing permits spiked. Read More »

Hayden Dublois
July 25, 2022

Puerto Rico urgently needs a facilitating government and a decentralized economy

One of the big problems we have in Puerto Rico is the worldview that the population has in relation to the functions of the state. We have become accustomed to seeing the government as the one that has to solve social problems, we justify its meddling in economic aspects and we even pay homage to politicians by treating them with certain airs of royalty.

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Nilda Perez Martinez
July 14, 2022

Law 52: the latest nonsense of the Puerto Rico legislature

One of the fundamental rights in our democratic and free enterprise system is the property and the possibility of freely disposing of it. The property right allows the effort of the initiative, work and creativity of human beings to be retained and materialized in a good or proprietary interest that the citizen can keep using and take advantage of. When the owner of that property understands that he must dispose of that property, he can do so freely.

Law 52: the latest nonsense of the Puerto Rico legislature Read More »

Carlos E. Diaz Olivo
July 5, 2022
Law 52: the latest nonsense of the Puerto Rico legislature

Labor reform: thickening the bureaucracy

What is going to happen, write it down, is that entrepreneurs, large or small; merchants who will be affected in one way or another, will pass the blow to the consumer. That is not talked about. The governor did not mention it in his "vibrant" speech when signing the law. But it is something that cannot be avoided. The increase in the mesada, in the Christmas bonus or whatever, is going to be paid by the consumers in the can of sausages.

Labor reform: thickening the bureaucracy Read More »

Mayra Montero
June 22, 2022
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